Communication between two persons happens when thoughts, feelings, ideas or information are exchanged between individuals with the help of speech, artistic expressions, writing or gestures. A gap might exist between the sender’s interpretation of the message being sent and that of the receiver’s. This can be avoided by knowing how to communicate properly by understanding the various elements involved in it. Hence, we should properly understand the various barriers that exist between two individual’s interpretations for communicating properly.




Communication Occurs At Verbal As Well As Non-Verbal Level
The common perception is that whenever one talks about communication, it must be something related with words being spoken and listened. But, there is much more to that as the major contributor towards proper communication is body language. Along with the content matter, the way something is said, also has equal importance. It accounts for more than 90% of the way it will be perceived by the listener with body language accounting for about 55% of it. It is extremely essential that the body language is congruent with the words being spoken by you. Certain tips which will help in this aspect are:
You should be non-judgmental and honest as gestures and speeches are co-expressive. But, never cross the line while observing someone’s body language.
The tone as well as the inflection of your voice is important for getting your point across effectively. Lay proper emphasis on the words being spoken by you.
Once in a while, use gestures that convey the opposite meaning of the intended message for verifying how well the listener understands you.

Overcoming the Communication Barriers
When you gain the understanding of the non-verbal aspects of communication along with the verbal part, it is time to implement them by sorting out the other issues that exist while communicating.
Cultural Barriers: Education, social status, age, economic position, gender, cultural background, popularity, temperament, basic values, aspirations and motives that separate individuals across the geographical terrain, are important factors to be considered while deciding how to communicate with a certain individual.
Perceptual Biases: Different people respond to stimuli in different ways. In the process of introducing shortcuts for organizing data, some biases do creep into the communication process. Stereotyping, self-fulfilling predictions and projections are few such shortcuts. Stereotyping is very common and it occurs when someone is assumed to have a certain set of characteristics solely based on his/her association with a certain group.
Interpersonal Relationships: The type of experience that we have had with some individual in the past also affects the perception of communication. Organizational relationship or the relative positions in the hierarchical chain also affects one’s perception.
Language Barriers: After sorting out the issue of making people communicate in a language which both of them can understand literally, it must be taken care that proper meaning is given to the spoken words to prevent distortion of actual facts which are to be conveyed.
Hence, for learning how to communicate differently with different individuals one should be well aware of the various elements of communication and the barriers to their implementation.